The present invention relates to a portable phone with a video answerphone message function, not provided with a picture phone function in the phone body, but with a video answerphone message function, and a portable phone system including the same.
In recent years, along with the popularization of a high-speed data transmission in the radio network field, expectations on the multimedia is gradually increased also in the portable phone field and it is anticipated that more and more multimedia application functions will be mounted on portable phones in future. In this context, there is a tendency of an introduction of a picture phone function enabling real-time exchanges of voice data and image data, for example.
There has been disclosed a technology of improving the answerphone message only in voice used before to a video answerphone message by using the picture phone function in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 13529 of 2000, titled “Picture Phone Device Having Automatic Answering Function,” for example, and further disclosed a terminal visually enabling a mutual confirmation of the other party by answering on an answerphone and recording a message from the other party with voices and images in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No 332916 of 2000, titled “Portable Picture Phone Terminal,” for example.
In a portable phone system with a video answerphone message function according to an existing art, however, there is a need for giving a picture phone function to both a phone of the origination party and a phone of the answering party in the basic structure. In other words, the phones themselves need to have means for inputting images and voices or means for encoding image data and voice data input thereby and further there is a need for using a communications protocol peculiar to picture phones in line connections. As a result, both phones of the origination party and the answering party are complicated in design, which leads to a large-sized configuration inevitably. Particularly, considering the applicability as a portable phone, it causes a problem that it is hard to realize a configuration that meets the recent requirements of downsized and lightweight phones.